A primary function of personal care absorbent articles is to absorb and retain body exudates such as urine, fecal material, blood, and menses with additional desired attributes including low leakage of the exudates from the absorbent article and a dry feel to the wearer of the absorbent article. By preventing leakage of the exudates from the absorbent article, the absorbent article intends to prevent the body exudates from soiling or contaminating a wearer's or caregiver's clothing or other articles, such as bedding, that can come in contact with the wearer.
One common mode of failure is for exudates to leak out of the rear waist region or the front waist region of an absorbent article. As one example, fecal material that is not absorbed or contained by the absorbent article can move past the gaps between the absorbent article and the wearer's skin in the rear waist region and soil or contaminate the wearer's skin and clothing near their back. This may be more common of an occurrence for semi-solid fecal material, such as low viscosity fecal material, which can be prevalent with younger children. Such exudates can move around on the bodyside liner of an absorbent article under the influence of gravity, motion, force, and pressure by the wearer of the absorbent article. In such a circumstance, not only does the wearer's absorbent article need to be changed, but the wearer's clothing and/or bedding often also needs to be changed, resulting in additional work, expense, and stress for the caregiver.
Attempts have been made in the past to provide containment systems, especially on the bodyside liner or near the rear waist region to solve the problems described above. One example is by providing a waist elastic member and not adhering a portion of the waist containment member closest to the lateral axis of the absorbent article to the bodyside liner, such that the non-adhered portion of the waist elastic member can provide a containment pocket for exudates. One example of this configuration is a HUGGIES® Little Snugglers diaper. Although absorbent articles with such containment members intend to prevent leakage of exudates and have functioned adequately, failures can still occur.
Thus, there is a desire for improvements to containment systems and containment members of absorbent articles to prevent leakage of exudates, especially in the waist regions of the absorbent article. There is also a desire for improvements in containment systems to have increased void volumes to hold body exudates until the absorbent article can be changed.